


Promises

by vega_voices



Category: The X files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-29
Updated: 2010-05-29
Packaged: 2017-10-19 23:32:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/206405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vega_voices/pseuds/vega_voices
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i> He’s out there somewhere and this time it isn’t because he’s taken off but because he’s been taken.  He’s out there and I’m here, carrying a child I need to believe is his.  </i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Promises

_**Fic: The X Files - Promises**_  
 **Title:** Promises  
 **Author:** [](http://vegawriters.livejournal.com/profile)[**vegawriters**](http://vegawriters.livejournal.com/)  
 **Fandom:** The X Files  
 **Pairing:** Mulder/Scully  
 **Rating:** An R if you’re sensitive.  
 **Timeframe:** Beginning of season 8  
 **Disclaimer:** Sadly, I don't own them. Things might have gone differently.

 **Summary:** _He’s out there somewhere and this time it isn’t because he’s taken off but because he’s been taken. He’s out there and I’m here, carrying a child I need to believe is his._

 _We are too deranged with the freedom of friendship  
and the little Dutch cigars we smoked  
intending to stain, to penetrate the lungs  
of those silk-shirted men in the restaurant.  
And probably they are no worse  
than killer bees, doing what they do  
with the special ferocity of opportunists  
anywhere. They will never read our poetry, that  
is certain._  
~From “The Dogs of Bucharest” by Tess Gallahger

The bed is comfortable, still smelling of him, of us. The sheets are still turned down, in the exact position we left them that last morning, when we rolled out of bed and he trapped me, playfully, against the wall. As I giggled and protested morning breath, he hefted me up to his hips and slid into me with practiced ease. I’d locked my ankles around him and hung on for the ride as he released his morning sexual tension into my body. Somehow, even though the moment had been about him more than me, I’d found myself sailing into release and as I clung to him after, my knees trembling, I realized that perfection was not a fantasy but what you made of reality.

My doctor’s mind has traced back all possible moments when that lucky sperm could have found the lone remaining egg still floating around my body. (I don’t like to think of the other possibilities right now.) And I cannot separate those frequent times – especially after I discovered the implantation had failed up to the point when I was so ill all I could do was snuggle in his arms – but somewhere, somewhen, up against the wall, under the covers of our beds, on his couch, at my kitchen table it happened. The playful part of me that is clinging to his memory wants it to have been that moment though, when he ambushed me after we climbed out of bed and whispered his love for me before we’d showered and headed to work in separate cars, still believing we were fooling people.

I should feed the fish, but I don’t know where he put the flakes this time. I should take out the trash, but it would mean leaving the comfort of these sheets. I should be panicking and angry over the clear violation of his space and the confiscation of his computer but all I want to do is wrap my arms around his pillow and inhale his scent and float into a dream world where he has his strong, comforting arms around me because when we’re together, the world makes sense. I should be angry, but instead I am just tired and I want to sleep forever and when I wake from this nightmare, he’ll be nuzzling at my neck and pulling me tighter against his body. He’ll soothe my fears and laugh at my paranoia and we will head in to work together and argue over the fine points of the latest round of abductions in Oregon. I’ll buy lunch, he’ll buy dinner, and we’ll sleep at my place this time because he’s out of food.

Maybe perfection is a fantasy.

He’s out there somewhere and this time it isn’t because he’s taken off but because he’s been taken. He’s out there and I’m here, carrying a child I need to believe is his. I need to tell my mother and I need her to tell my brothers and I need for all of them to not ask me who the father is – they will know and none of them will approve, not even Mom. Because, when Mulder is returned to my side, it won’t be a quick shotgun wedding that will end with a white picket fence and a dog and a baby in a crib by the fire. Our lives together are not meant to take that turn and neither of us will be satisfied until we know for sure the child I am carrying is indeed his and not some strange product of what those who seek to control our lives wish to do. I will not be sure until my child is in my arms that I am not carrying a hybrid and suddenly, I wonder if I could love a hybrid experiment as my own and it sickens me to realize that I would rather the butchers take it from me than make me raise it. I am tired of being their pawn. I am sick of Mulder being yanked from one place to another. I want to believe, I do believe, but I want the man I love to come home and make love to me in celebration of the miracle inside of me, and then I want to continue our lives together. I want to chase down the monsters who prey upon the innocent. I want to celebrate the beings who aren’t here to harm. I want him here to hold me while I feed our child.

But if I have learned anything in the past seven years, it is that my desires have little bearing on the world around me. Agent Doggett, if I knew where my lover was, I still wouldn’t tell you. But, what frightens me is that you look at me as if you know how often we spend the night together. You look at me as if you know exactly how I scream his name when he coaxes me over that edge into oblivion. How long have you been spying on us? Or is it that I’m feeling guilty and therefore reading something into every nothing glance. Do you know, Agent Doggett that I am pregnant and that this absolute miracle is marred by Mulder being missing?

I think he does know. He has to at least know about our relationship. They’ve been here, they’ve searched, they’ve seen the spare suits and the feminine toiletries in the bathroom. They’ve seen the silk nightgown (his Christmas present to me last year) tucked away in his underwear drawer. I’ve worn it countless times. It never stays on long enough to last the night.

My eyes are heavy and I recognize the feeling now. My body is adjusting, forcing rest that I once wouldn’t have demanded. I do not fight it but let the feeling wash over me. Maybe when I wake, Mulder will be sitting there, a cup of coffee in his hands, looking at me with that gentle look I fell in love with seven years ago.

I’m going to find you, Mulder. I promise you. I’m going to find you and we’re going to live together and be together and there will be no separating us again. We will raise our child and find a spot in the light together and I will never let you out of my sight again.

Mrs. Spooky. If only I’d have known then …

I’m coming to find you, Mulder.

***

In my rare moments of lucidity, I think of her. It seems cliché to the analytical part of my mind, to find my comfort in the memory of the smell of her perfume or the touch of her hand against mine. But then again, I’ve always been better with emotion than logic. It’s why I’m a better profiler than psychologist. But, when I _can_ think and feel, when my brain can process more than the buzzing of the saws or the hum of the lasers, I think of the light in her eyes when I show up at her place, rose in one hand, red wine in the other. I think of the secret smile she gives just to me and the tender touch of her lips against my forehead. She would make this better. She would bandage my wounds and put me to bed and snuggle next to me and we’d watch the Discovery Channel and fall asleep in each other’s arms. When she finds me, she’ll wash my face and cluck after me as she tucks me under the blankets. She’ll cook me real food but keep comfort food in the fridge. We’ll wake together and she’ll go for her morning run and come back and I’ll have cooked breakfast and then we’ll head to work in separate cars, believing we are fooling people.

She must be terrified. And she’s sick. God, she looked so pale that night in the motel in Oregon … whenever … it was. I’ve lost track of all sense of time. Hours no longer matter and the beat of my heart is lost in the drilling of the tests. That last time I held her, when I felt our hearts beat together, she looked so sick. So tired. So pale. Like she had when the cancer took that turn and she started to lose her strength. That last time I held her, I clung to her, trying to keep her warm. I wish now that we’d made love, but we thought he had all the time in the world.

She woke that morning, pressed up against me, and when our eyes locked I knew we had the same idea about how to greet the day. Her legs scissored between mine, my hand traveled up her body to cup her breast under the sweatshirt of mine she was wearing. But whatever virus she caught had other plans with her stomach and instead of worshipping each other, she spent the better part of an hour worshipping the toilet in my bathroom while I rubbed her back and brushed her hair out of her face.

There is a small part of me that, for a moment, suspected the miracle we had given up on. But the procedure that was her last hope did not take.

“I don’t want this to come between us …” I’d whispered to her. Our romantic relationship was finally, finally on solid ground and already she wanted children. It wasn’t like I hadn’t been dreaming of little Scully-Mulder’s running around since the moment I laid eyes on her, but we’d been through so much and to add children to the mix ran the risk of ruining us. But I was as heartbroken as she was when the procedure didn’t take. I gathered her in my arms and let her cry and hid my own tears in her hair. Children didn’t matter, we told ourselves, but they did. They do.

I’m coming home, Scully. I’m coming home and we’ll adopt all the babies you want and we’ll retire to the vineyard on my inheritance and your savings and raise children and we’ll stop chasing monsters. I promise you. I’ll get home to you. I promise you.

She is all that gets me through the tests – the image of her face, her bright blue eyes shining at me while she argues a point in my general direction. We’re always arguing the same side of the coin, just coming at it from different directions. When did she become my cause, my breath, my reason for living? I don’t know, but I do know that she is all that matters to me. I am going to get back to her. I am not going to let these bastards win. I am going to hold her forever and never, ever, ever let her go. I’m going to apologize to her for being angry about her repressing the memories of her own abduction. God help me if I have to remember this when I get out of it.

I’m coming home to you, Dana. I promise. God, I promise.

 _fin_


End file.
